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Muslim spaces and piety politics : Muslim mothers embroidering multiple interpretations of Islam in the contemporary context of transnational urban landscape of Auckland : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

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Abstract

New Zealand has been home to many migrants including Muslims for the past many
decades. Muslims from diverse ethnic backgrounds have travelled and chosen this
country as their new place of residence. Based on participant-observation fieldwork in
Mt Roskill, a suburb in Auckland that is known for its highest Muslim population in
New Zealand, this study seeks to map how devout Muslim mothers from different
ethnicities strive to live their lives as pious Muslims. This ethnographic research aims
to examine two primary issues: Muslim women’s engagement with their role as pious
Muslims who endeavour to improve themselves in terms of understanding and
practicing Islamic tenets in the midst of multiple discourses and practices available to
them; and their engagement with their role as mothers who try to bring up their
children as good Muslims in a diverse and increasingly global Muslim community
within a larger scale of non-Muslim urban landscape. In particular, this study addresses
how these women imbue piety in their children and improve themselves to be better
Muslims in different Muslim spaces; home, tafsīr and tajwīd classes, communal
prayer, their children’s madrassa and public school. Themes of music, clothing,
gender-segregated spaces, greetings and ṣalāt (prayer) among others, emerged
throughout the text in which piety politics is the core. For these Muslim women their
lives are marked by negotiations to social mores, religious belief and practice vis-à-vis
the diverse Muslim community and the larger non-Muslim context.